FAA Regional Administrator for the Western-Pacific Region Glen Martin is surrounded by hundreds of locals as he speaks at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium on Wednesday during a meeting about the FAA’s feasibility study on solutions to address flight path noise. (Kevin Johnson -- Santa Cruz Sentinel)

County officials attend a meeting about the FAA’s solutions to address flight path noise during a Select Committee meeting at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium on Wednesday. (Kevin Johnson -- Santa Cruz Sentinel)

SANTA CRUZ >> Residents, most frustrated with increased jet noise, shared their thoughts on the Federal Aviation Administration’s feasibility study that reviewed suggestions for relief from new flight paths on Wednesday.

About 500 people attended the meeting at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium.

Many in solidarity wore red to represent rage and brandished posters that read “FAA Don’t Jet on Me” and “Stop the Jet Noise.”

“I feel like I’m in a bomber zone,” said Roger Welsh of Aptos. “Quality of life is huge. It’s absolutely very, very disturbing.”

The trouble began last year when the FAA rolled out a new high-tech navigation system at Bay Area airports called Next Generation. It changed how planes descend to save money, time and fuel, but now brings them lower over areas where residents are used to peace and quiet.

Since the enactment of NextGen locally, thousands of residents in Santa Cruz County, Monterey County and up the San Francisco Peninsula have been fighting for something to be done by the new noise.

They and elected officials recommended solutions to the FAA for reducing the noise. And the agency has recently returned with a feasibility study that looks at some of those ideas point-by-point.

Many at the meeting said the FAA should make its own solution proposals. More called NextGen and the new study flawed, saying the latter doesn’t really address the problem of noise. It also shows that some of those proposed solutions aren’t feasible, such as dispersing planes and having them fly over the ocean longer.

Santa Cruz County Supervisor Bruce McPherson plainly asked Glen Martin, the FAA’s Western-Pacific Regional Administrator why the jet altitudes could not be raised, which the study determined was not feasible.

“It’s not so much a safety issue as an efficiency issue,” Martin said, adding that the angle of decent over the Santa Cruz Mountains greatly affects how the plane touches down and giving insight to how complicated managing air traffic is.

McPherson sits on the so-called Select Committee, established by congressional representatives and made up of local officials from Santa Cruz, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties to serve as a liaison between the community and the FAA in finding a solution. This was the committee’s first of three public meetings, after which it will make its own recommendations to members of Congress.

“I think there is a delicate balance between charming the FAA and pushing the FAA,” said Joe Simitian, chair of the Select Committee and Santa Clara County Supervisor, “so I hope in the weeks and months to come we will charmingly push the FAA into fixing the problem.”

One neighborhood group, Save Our Skies Santa Cruz County, said the feasibility report had “room for improvement.”

“We urge the Select Committee to consider immediate solutions for relief,” said co-chair Patrick Meyer. “We recommend the Select Committee to direct the FAA to restore the historical flight path to a pre-NextGen environment.”

That idea has stirred controversy among those just a few miles away who live beneath the older route, which is still used and stretches over Santa Cruz’s Westside and up through the San Lorenzo Valley.

“All this would do is move the noise elsewhere,” said George Wylie of the San Lorenzo Valley Advocacy Group.

However, some residents testified that simply shifting the path back is not a solution.

The Select Committee has public meetings scheduled on June 15 in San Mateo County and June 29 in Santa Clara County, with specific details to be announced.

FAA Feasibility Study

The Federal Aviation Administration released a feasibility study last week that looks at possible solutions to the jet noise plaguing thousands of Bay Area residents. The recommendations addressed in the report were gathered from residents and elected officials from Santa Cruz, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. The report is the first phase in a three-phase approach to review and respond to the community proposals.